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keith_ltd2022-01-15 07:46 am
runawayballista) wrote in keith_ltd2022-01-15 07:46 am
Live at the Mile High Club! Chapter 7
Fandom: BanG Dream!, Scum Villain
Title: Live at the Mile High Club!
Summary: Faced with the live house's looming financial crisis, Shang Qinghua has to make some sacrifices...and ask for some help. Tension sparks between the members of Proud Immortal Demon Way as they struggle to make progress on their new song.
End notes
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As soon as Shang Qinghua came back to work on Monday, she regretted taking a day off. Yes, she had needed the sleep, and yes, it had been an unprecedentedly productive day for Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, but now Shang Qinghua was facing an intimidating pile of emails, and she hadn’t even started booking for this weekend’s show.
This was just a way too stressful start to a Monday! Those emails could sit for a little while longer. She needed a morale boost. Time to lean back in her chair and scroll through Airplane’s unread messages. She’d been too caught up in her composition frenzy yesterday to actually sit down and read any of them.
She opened the message from Moon Dew as she sipped coffee. It was already making her stomach complain, but she ignored it. Aw, the message was pretty cute, they just wanted to shower Airplane with gushing thanks for pointing them towards the Mile High Club, and how it had been a life-changing experience and they were only going to work harder on their music from now on…ah, it really warmed her heart! Actually, it was kind of like what she was trying to do with the live house, so in a way, she was helping Moon Dew twice over.
And they’d uploaded a video to their Twitter, too! Good on them, having a friend there to film them. It was a pretty good way to promote yourself, everyone liked a good live music video.
The coffee turned to acid in Shang Qinghua’s stomach. No, no, the last thing she wanted was to come too close to crossing the streams! It was one thing for Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky to give them a secret nudge towards a live gig, totally another for her to publicly boost the name of the live house. That was close! Way too close!
But…she didn’t really have a good reason to say no. They were diehard fans and had been since they’d first stumbled upon Airplane’s music on a Vocaloid fan forum, and they’d be crushed if she turned them down without a reason. Could she let her fans down like that?
Well…it was just one little signal boost, right? And it was about Moon Dew, not the venue. And it probably would mean a whole lot to them, and at the end of the day, Shang Qinghua had a hard time saying no to her fans…
She retweeted the video, her stomach gurgling unhappily. Ugh, all this stress was murder on her gut lately. She knew the coffee wasn’t helping, either, but her stomach was now rejecting food on a fairly nondiscriminatory basis, so she thought, fuck it, at least she’d be awake. She stared at the unread emails in the company inbox, a sad whine escaping her throat like a deflated balloon.
Shang Qinghua called for Yuka, who looked annoyed like she’d been interrupted, which she probably had been.
“Got a minute?”
“No, but I’m here now. What is it?”
Shang Qinghua pressed her hands together and pointed them at Yuka. “I would like to offer you a promotion.”
Yuka immediately turned and walked out the door.
“Wait, wait, don’t go! I don’t mean a promotion like mine, I’m talking for real, I swear so please don’t go okay!”
Yuka turned back around reluctantly and crossed her arms. Shang Qinghua babbled on without prompting.
“Look, I know working here sucks! I know working for me sucks!” Shang Qinghua’s head sunk into her hands, her voice a plaintive whine. “But I’m doing my best, I really am! There are just so many emails, and booking bands is really hard and I have to start reconciling the month’s finances and it’s just too much work! Please be my general manager! I am begging you!”
“Yeah, and it’s pathetic.” Yuka regarded Shang Qinghua with her usual heartless gaze. “I want a raise.”
“I just gave you a raise!”
“Yeah, but not for a promotion. You can’t expect me to take a promotion without a raise.”
Shang Qinghua sat back in her chair, feeling cornered. “Okay, I’ll, uh, I’m gonna take a look and see what I can offer you…”
Yuka gave her a hard look for a long moment, then sighed. “Look. If paying me more is going to make it harder for us to recover, then you don’t have to give me a raise right now. But I’m expecting one as soon as we’re back in the black.”
“Yes! Yes, for sure, I will definitely give you a raise when I can afford it,” Shang Qinghua promised quickly. She hesitated. “Ah, does this apply to the raise I gave you earlier, or—”
Yuka silenced her with a withering look. Shang Qinghua cowered in her chair. Yuka pinched the bridge of her nose, the corners of her mouth tugging down.
“Why do you think working here sucks?”
Shang Qinghua looked up, blinking. Yuka’s mouth pinched.
“It does suck to work for you. But if I really hated it here, don’t you think I’d have quit already? Actually, I think the fact that I haven’t quit yet should tell you how much I like working here.”
Well, that was a relief, yes. But… “Why do you like working here?”
“Because I care about this place too.” She wasn’t embarrassed to say it, lifting her chin. “The old management was rotten. Everyone knew that. But I care about the music here. Even if the old owners never really scouted bands for their talent or their sound, only caring about making a buck…not that it worked. But this place has always had potential to help the bands who play here grow. We could foster real growth here, contribute to the Shinjuku sound. Princess Cucumber was right, you know—this last show really was different.”
There was a lot to unpack there, but the thing that Shang Qinghua’s attention snagged on was— “Wait, you read her blog?”
“That overrated hipster? I don’t pay attention to anyone who labels themselves as an ‘influencer’. I just checked her review so I’d know whether you’d be a major bummer today.”
“It was a pretty decent review, wasn’t it?” Shang Qinghua leaned back in her chair, propping her feet on her desk. “Come to think of it, Marina said something similar. About fostering growth and all that.”
Yuka narrowed her eyes slightly. “Marina?”
“Yeah, Tsukishima Marina from CiRCLE. She was the one who hooked us up with an audition from Afterglow. Honestly, if it weren’t for her we’d probably have been totally screwed.”
“Oh. That explains that. Get your feet off the desk.”
Shang Qinghua immediately obeyed, despite the fact that it was her desk, not Yuka’s. She looked up at her new general manager. “Do you know her?”
“Marina? Yeah, we were in a band together once.”
“Wait, you played in a band? For real?” She shouldn’t have been surprised, especially after this little heart-to-heart. By Yuka standards, it definitely counted as a heart-to-heart. But still! She was unlocking new levels of Yuka lore! “What instrument? Why’d you guys stop playing?”
Yuka ignored her first question and just shrugged. “It just didn’t work out after a while. We realized we weren’t having any fun playing anymore, so we decided to call it quits. It was forever ago. I heard she’d gotten a job at a live house, but I didn’t realize it was at CiRCLE. Good for her.”
She turned back to the door. “Well, if that’s it, I’m getting back to work.”
Shang Qinghua sat back and breathed a little sigh of relief. That didn’t solve all of her problems, not by a long shot, but it alleviated the pressure just a little bit. Shang Qinghua decided to put off the emails for a little bit in favor of looking over the finances. She might as well get a head start, considering how many creditors the live house owed to, and the sooner she got it over with, the sooner she could start nursing her new ulcer.
“I am so sorry I have to do this.” Shang Qinghua’s voice was thick, choked with misery. “But I don’t have any other choice. I have to find a way to make ends meet. I…I have to let you go.”
With great heaviness in her heart, Shang Qinghua carefully lowered one of her anime figures into a box for shipping. She was taking serious psychic damage here, but she really didn’t have any other choice if she wanted to pay (very) late rent!
Not for the first time, the rent for the Mile High Club was going to have to be supplemented by her own measly savings and what she scrounged together selling a couple of her figures online. An auction would’ve been better, she probably could’ve gotten more money, but…she really needed the cash as soon as possible.
There were just so many bills and deadlines, it was hard to keep track! And she was usually behind on them anyway, throwing money at the live house’s bills as soon as there was enough liquid to cover a check. Shang Qinghua had to keep spreadsheets just to keep track of how much money the Mile High Club owed to whom and why. She was getting so, so sick of spreadsheets.
But even forgoing her own rent, even selling off her precious personal belongings to throw into the bottomless well of the live house’s debt, wasn’t a sustainable solution. Yuka was right: a couple of successful shows wasn’t going to be enough. They had to start selling out gigs on the regular, or close enough to it, before Shang Qinghua’s personal funds evaporated entirely.
Shang Qinghua twisted her hair up into a bun to get it off her sweaty neck and reached over with a foot to nudge the box fan in the corner on. So much for composing tonight; the last couple of weeks had been so nauseatingly hectic, she was extra behind on the admin end of things, and she needed to sort shit out before debt collectors came knocking on the Mile High Club’s doors. Flipping between the live house’s accounting books in her lap and her bank account and menagerie of spreadsheets on her laptop, Shang Qinghua tried to find a solution. She was already cutting corners, but maybe she could take over all the custodial duties at the live house? She wasn’t sure she’d have time. And if she started having to cut her employees’ hours down…ugh, no! That was the last thing she wanted to do! What was the point of keeping the business open if her own staff couldn’t make a living wage working there? They definitely wouldn’t be restocking shochu there any time soon, though, Shang Qinghua thought glumly.
So she’d slash a few personal expenses, then. Sure, her spending had gotten pretty austere since ownership of the live house had been dropped on her—she’d passed up a Nendoroid preorder she’d been looking forward to with an actual, physical pang in her chest—and she hadn’t bought new clothes in, well, longer than that. Food? She was already down to pretty much the cheapest stuff imaginable…she could stop buying alcohol, that was no problem, but she didn’t even really spend that much on beer. Could she subsidize her diet by partially living off the snack bar at work? Augh, no, that would hurt her bottom line too! Shang Qinghua buried her face in her keyboard with a moan. She’d just had such a success! It was totally unfair that things still looked this bleak!!
But at the very least, Peerless Cucumber’s review, while not exactly raving, had nudged a little more business their way. Practice studio bookings were up, for one, and with Yuka’s help, they were actually filling out their lineup for the next couple of weeks, less of a week-to-week sprint now, more of a marathon. It’d be too much to ask for a headliner like Afterglow every weekend at this point, but Yuka had managed to talk the main act who abandoned them at the disastrous concert into coming back for another show. It wasn’t enough to save Shang Qinghua’s wallet right now, but it might just be enough in the long run. If they could keep it up.
There was, Shang Qinghua had to admit, something pretty satisfying about making the numbers fit. It would be a lot more satisfying if the numbers looked better, but now at the very least, she’d figured out which bills would be paid on time, which would be late and by how much, and…miscellaneous.
She was still working on miscellaneous.
“Shang Qinghua!”
She jumped automatically at Yuka’s short bark. One of these days, she’d—get used to it, probably! She peeled herself out of her chair and hobbled into the lobby, her left leg having fallen asleep from the knee down.
Yuka was on the phone, jerking a thumb back to the practice studios. “Studio B needs breaking down. They’re almost done in there.”
It was a Thursday, so Studio B’s residents were Proud Immortal Demon Way. Shang Qinghua could hear trickles of their sound as she approached, and her ears pricked. She decided to loiter a little just outside the door, curious. Whatever they were playing now, she didn’t recognize it.
The sound of Luo Binghe’s guitar cut out abruptly.
“Stop, everyone stop!”
Six Balls played a couple more bars on the drums, heedless of Luo Binghe’s semi-anguished tone, before finishing it off with a fill. Luo Binghe let out a noise of frustration.
“This is a mess. There’s no way this is good enough for Shen Yuan-sama.” Dejection was clear in her voice. “Six Balls, you’re going way too fast. This is supposed to be a ballad!”
“This is a ballad?” Sha Hualing scoffed. “Who writes a ballad that starts off with power chords at top volume?”
“It’s a power ballad,” Luo Binghe said defensively. Sha Hualing picked out a sarcastic riff on her guitar in response.
“We’ve only just started to write this song,” Mobei Jun said, her voice cutting firmly through the rising squabble. “You can hardly judge its quality at this point; there’s not enough to judge. The lyrics you’re writing are coming along, but you have to give the rest of the band a chance to catch up. We’ve been working on this for less than a week.”
“Yeah, and it doesn’t help that you keep changing the chord progression,” Sha Hualing said. “How’re we supposed to write anything that doesn’t sound like shit?”
“It needs to be perfect,” Luo Binghe insisted, stubbornly strumming out yet another reshuffled chord progression. “Not like our other songs. It has to be truly memorable.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with our other songs?” Six Balls said. Sha Hualing crossed her arms and glared at Luo Binghe, who only bristled in response, clutching her guitar in a white-knuckled grip.
Mobei Jun put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Binghe,” she said, “you’re overthinking it. The more you try to force it, the unhappier you’ll be with it. So don’t push so hard. We’re not on a deadline. I think you’d be better off focusing on the lyrics right now and leave the music to us. Make sure they say what you want them to say, and we’ll make sure the sound resonates.”
Luo Binghe let out an unhappy noise, but dropped it at that. Shang Qinghua knocked on the door and cracked it open to peer inside.
“Hey, guys, you’ve got a couple of minutes left. Need some help packing up?”
“Please, thank you. We must have lost track of time,” Meiyin said, with a meaningful look at both Sha Hualing and Luo Binghe. Only Sha Hualing caught it, and she made a face, mouthing it’s not my faaaauuult back at her. With a long, dramatic sigh, Luo Binghe unplugged her amp and collected her notebook. Shang Qinghua politely pretended not to notice any of this.
“Ah, no worries, I get it, you know? Sometimes you’re just really in the zone.” Shang Qinghua started breaking down the drum set with Six Balls’s help. “So…you guys writing a new song? I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”
Mobei Jun looked at her sharply, and though she was still holding her bass, something about her posture strongly gave off an “arms crossed across the chest while staring down at you” vibe. For a teenager, she really could be kind of…imperious sometimes. Shang Qinghua privately wondered if it had occurred to the band to really incorporate Mobei Jun’s ice queen vibes into their image. Honestly, their stage outfits kind of lacked cohesion. They could do with a few design pointers to really sharpen that image…
Mobei Jun was asking her a question. Shang Qinghua shook her mind back to the present. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, is anyone using the studio after us?” Mobei Jun repeated. She didn’t really sound annoyed, but she did regard Shang Qinghua with a universal coldness, so she didn’t have to.
“Oh—nah, you guys are the last in for tonight.”
“In that case, I’d like to extend the reservation by another thirty minutes.” Mobei Jun nodded curtly to her bandmates. “Solo practice. Go home if you like.”
Luo Binghe was already hurrying out of the studio as soon as her guitar was in her case, without waiting for her bandmates. Mobei Jun’s mouth thinned slightly.
“I’ll be right back. Can the rest of you handle cleanup?”
“You got it, Momo,” Six Balls said, punctuating with a tap on the hi-hat Shang Qinghua was currently trying to disassemble. Mobei Jun wasn’t really an expressively fond person, but Shang Qinghua imagined there were very few people in the world who could get away with calling her Momo. Mobei Jun only nodded and strode after Luo Binghe.
“Binghe.”
Luo Binghe almost kept going, but stopped at the front doors, crossing her arms. But she didn’t look angry so much as sulky, jaw clenched and shoulders hunched. Mobei Jun was used to her moods by now, even if the others weren’t.
“What,” Luo Binghe said flatly. Mobei Jun lifted a finger to point at her.
“I understand that you want to show your passion through our music. I understand wanting to make an impression on someone you look up to.” She spoke deliberately, unrushed, each word weighted. Her brows drew down. “But you are not the only member of this band. Or have you forgotten why we started Proud Immortal Demon Way in the first place?”
Luo Binghe’s shoulders hunched even higher, and she at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed. That was enough of an answer for Mobei Jun.
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” Luo Binghe muttered, and pushed open the front doors.
Mobei Jun walked back to the studio.
Sha Hualing was shouldering her guitar case while Meiyin thanked Shang Qinghua for the help. Six Balls led the way out for her bandmates with her hand in a bag of peach gummies. As she passed Mobei Jun, she took one out and slapped it into Mobei Jun’s open hand. Mobei Jun accepted it with a formal nod, put the candy in her pocket, and went back into the practice studio.
Shang Qinghua was forcefully kicking a supply closet shut, having ineffectively stacked the amps and bundles of cables, but figured this was the more expedient solution anyway. Mobei Jun picked up her bass and sat back down as the latch finally clicked.
Shang Qinghua made as if to leave, then hesitated, hovering awkwardly.
“So, you guys are writing a new song?” she tried again. Mobei Jun only grunted in response, slightly adjusting a tuner on her bass. She plucked the string to test it, and fiddled with it again. Shang Qinghua did not leave. “I’ve actually got an electric tuner, if you—”
“I don’t need it,” Mobei Jun said, not looking at her. When Shang Qinghua still did not leave, she said, “I’ll pay for the extra time on my way out.”
“Oh—yeah, that’s not a problem! I just, uh…” Shang Qinghua coughed into her hand. “It just seemed like you guys were struggling with the new song, I thought maybe I could…help…with…that?”
She’d expected Mobei Jun to say something, anything in interjection (even if just a refusal), but instead her question just stretched out awkwardly while Mobei Jun tuned her bass. Mobei Jun finally looked up, her cold gaze settling on Shang Qinghua’s face. Shang Qinghua shivered involuntarily.
Jeez, what was with this girl! Luo Binghe was a handful, but you could at least divine what she was thinking between her mood swings—Shang Qinghua really didn’t know what to expect from Mobei Jun, the bassist who always silently stood behind her vocalist, backing her up musically, socially, and intimidating posingly!
After an uncomfortably long silence, Mobei Jun said, “Why do you want to help us?”
Shang Qinghua blinked. “Why wouldn’t I? You guys are like, the Mile High Club’s resident band. You play here practically every week. Also, you know, I kind of helped you guys come together as a band, you know? I even gave you your name.”
Mobei Jun did not acknowledge those last two comments in any way. Instead she said, “Every time Luo Binghe has nominated us for the main act, you’ve turned her down. Do you agree with Shen Yuan’s assessment of our band?”
Shang Qinghua choked. Please don’t align her with Peerelss Cucumber! She’s not that much of a critic! She just wants to save her business, okay!
“Uh—I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It’s true you guys need some work, but you’re a new band. Nobody starts out on top. But…” Shang Qinghua permitted herself a little swell of pride. “I definitely don’t think we’re holding you back. I don’t think anything’s holding you back, is the thing, except maybe yourselves. You’re just still coming together, is all.”
Mobei Jun watched her as she ambled over to the wall. There were a variety of instruments hung up for easy access. Rentals for people who couldn’t or didn’t want to lug their own instruments around—or, as had been the case for Luo Binghe in the start, didn’t have an instrument of their own.
“Peerless Cucumber had one thing right: you guys are like, oozing with talent. That’s why it’s been so cool to watch you all come together as a band.” She reached for a compact little 54-key keyboard and lifted it from its stand. “But there are five of you, and you all have your own unique sound. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where they all meet at the seams. The truth is, I’m kind of looking forward to seeing what shape you guys take. You are headliner material. It’s not a matter of if, but when. You’re just not quite there yet.”
By the time Shang Qinghua had finished speaking, she’d set the keyboard on a stand, plugged it in, and turned it on. “So, if I can, I’d like to give you a little help. Just a nudge, you know? You don’t have to tell anyone.”
She noticed then that Mobei Jun’s forbidding stare hadn’t changed in the slightest, and felt a wave of terrifying teen girl aura hit her. She immediately threw her hands up and backed up a step towards the door.
“Or not! I can totally get lost right now if you want. Don’t have to help at all.”
Mobei Jun seemed to be finished tuning her bass. She adjusted her grip, her left hand sliding up the neck, and looked at Shang Qinghua.
“I didn’t know you were a musician.”
“Oh, y’know, I…dabble.” Hm, that didn’t seem like a rejection at all. Shang Qinghua’s hands hovered over the keys. “How about you play me those chords, and I’ll see what I can do?”
The band met later that night at Meiyin’s house, not for more practice, but for a little post-rehearsal unwinding on Meiyin’s suggestion. As one of the two band members who habitually thought before they spoke, it wasn’t hard for Meiyin to coax them into a night of watching variety shows, relaxing herbal tea and snacks, and fixing some interrupted pedicures.
Mobei Jun was the last to arrive, shedding her shoes at the door and heading down to the basement after politely greeting Meiyin’s mother. Six Balls had a variety of snacks spread out over the floor in front of her, produced mysteriously from the depths of her jacket. Sha Hualing was contorted into an improbable position at one end of the couch, absorbed in some phone game, while Luo Binghe lay passed out cold next to her. Meiyin was just finishing up a coat of polish on Luo Binghe’s toes with careful, delicate strokes.
“She fell asleep pretty much right away,” Meiyin said with a rueful smile, capping the bottle of polish. “I think she stayed up all night working on those lyrics.”
Six Balls dug a crumpled bag from inside her jacket and threw it at Mobei Jun, who neatly caught it out of the air. “Momo, I saved you the squid chips!”
“Thank you,” Mobei Jun said. Sha Hualing pouted at her phone.
“How come she’s the only one who ever gets squid chips?”
“Relax, girl, I got you covered. I’m your KitKat connection.”
Without looking away from her phone, Sha Hualing halfway leaned off the couch and opened her mouth. Six Balls broke off a KitKat and stuck it into her waiting maw, holding it there while Sha Hualing munched on it and tapped furiously on her phone. When that piece was gone, Six Balls repeated the process, feeding her KitKats like she was a candy-gnashing machine.
Mobei Jun unslung her bass, sat down in an empty chaise, and pulled open the bag of squid chips. It was nice to have a post-rehearsal snack. If Meiyin was the one who kept them relaxed (as much as was possible) and well-groomed, Six Balls was the one who made sure no one went hungry.
“How was solo practice?” Meiyin asked, then frowned at Mobei Jun’s hands. “You really should let me do something about those calluses. You have such lovely hands.”
She captured Mobei Jun’s hands in her own and carefully inspected them, her long fingers wrapped lightly around Mobei Jun’s. She seemed to fluster their other bandmates on occasion with her attention, but it never ruffled Mobei Jun.
“Won’t you at least consider playing with a pick?”
“Playing with a pick doesn’t produce the desired sound,” Mobei Jun said, repeating an argument they had every other week. It was like a little ritual of theirs, one of many that had emerged since they’d become Proud Immortal Demon Way. Meiyin always gave in easily, though, and let out a little sigh, releasing Mobei Jun’s hands with a wistful smile. “It was productive. I think I may have made some progress.”
“Ooh, yeah?” Six Balls looked over, eyeing Mobei Jun’s bass curiously. “What’d you—ow!”
Not having realized she had run out of KitKat to feed Sha Hualing, Six Balls had accidentally stuck her fingers into Sha Hualing’s mouth, and Sha Hualing, paying more attention to her phone, had bitten down hard. Six Balls wiped her hand on Sha Hualing’s shirt, and in turn, Sha Hualing slapped the star-shaped sunglasses off of Six Balls’s head.
“Enough, enough,” Meiyin said as Six Balls pulled Sha Hualing off of the couch with a giggle and a subsequent thud as they knocked each other to the floor. “Let’s not wake Binghe.”
“It’ll be easier to show the rest of you without interruption,” Mobei Jun said, knowing full well that Luo Binghe wouldn’t let her get more than a few measures in without commentary. Luo Binghe always had a sort of possessiveness about their music, but it was…markedly worse when she was so fixated on Shen Yuan. Mobei Jun set aside her squid chips and pulled her bass out, straightening her back. She nodded briefly at Meiyin, who was already moving for her keyboard.
Mobei Jun had Meiyin play the chords while she plucked out the melody on her bass, and then they switched parts, Meiyin’s keyboard quietly sounding out the new melody much more clearly. On the second go through, Six Balls picked up a pencil and tapped out a rhythm on her shoe, adding a counter beat on her lap. Sha Hualing, whose guitar was an unfathomable distance away on the other side of the basement, tossed her phone aside and listened with intent.
“Hey, is this what a ballad’s supposed to sound like?” Six Balls said. Meiyin’s mouth quirked into a smile.
“More than what we were playing earlier. I think we might have something we can work with.” She glanced at Mobei Jun. “This is different from what you usually write, isn’t it? It sounds a little warmer, somehow.”
“Binghe said she wanted to write a ballad.” Mobei Jun’s fingers still slowly picked out the notes, feeling them resonate a little more as everyone else added their sound. “Solo practice can be quite productive, as it turns out.”
Meiyin’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but she smiled without comment. Sha Hualing, her fingers now itching to do something other than play with her phone, jumped over Six Balls to get her guitar.
“Well, it’s not solo practice anymore, so give me that melody,” she said with an imperious little toss of her braids, snatching her guitar from its case. “Mobei Jun, you wrote that phrase for me, right? Meiyin, you can compose a keyboard part to go with it instead.”
Mobei Jun said nothing, but Meiyin, ever the mediator, just laughed softly. “Of course, of course. I think the ideal keyboard part for this song is more of a supporting role. I can think of a few arpeggios to try. Besides, you’re much better at improvisation than I am, so I’m sure you’ll be able to tease it out into something more than just one phrase.”
“Exactly,” Sha Hualing said, putting one foot up on Mobei Jun’s chaise so she could brace her guitar against her leg. Her eyes were alight with intent new determination. Meiyin, flipping through the presets on her keyboard, didn’t bother hiding a smile. “I’ll write a killer lead guitar part for this song, and Six Balls, you can polish up that beat, can’t you? And Mobei Jun’s pretty much got her part figured out already. We’ll put it all together tonight. And when we play this for Binghe at practice tomorrow, she’ll be totally floored at how well we captured her vision. And then she won’t have a single thing to complain about!”
End notes: i will wring every bit of marina lore from her limited backstory with a cheesecloth
Title: Live at the Mile High Club!
Summary: Faced with the live house's looming financial crisis, Shang Qinghua has to make some sacrifices...and ask for some help. Tension sparks between the members of Proud Immortal Demon Way as they struggle to make progress on their new song.
End notes
AO3 mirror
As soon as Shang Qinghua came back to work on Monday, she regretted taking a day off. Yes, she had needed the sleep, and yes, it had been an unprecedentedly productive day for Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, but now Shang Qinghua was facing an intimidating pile of emails, and she hadn’t even started booking for this weekend’s show.
This was just a way too stressful start to a Monday! Those emails could sit for a little while longer. She needed a morale boost. Time to lean back in her chair and scroll through Airplane’s unread messages. She’d been too caught up in her composition frenzy yesterday to actually sit down and read any of them.
She opened the message from Moon Dew as she sipped coffee. It was already making her stomach complain, but she ignored it. Aw, the message was pretty cute, they just wanted to shower Airplane with gushing thanks for pointing them towards the Mile High Club, and how it had been a life-changing experience and they were only going to work harder on their music from now on…ah, it really warmed her heart! Actually, it was kind of like what she was trying to do with the live house, so in a way, she was helping Moon Dew twice over.
And they’d uploaded a video to their Twitter, too! Good on them, having a friend there to film them. It was a pretty good way to promote yourself, everyone liked a good live music video.
The coffee turned to acid in Shang Qinghua’s stomach. No, no, the last thing she wanted was to come too close to crossing the streams! It was one thing for Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky to give them a secret nudge towards a live gig, totally another for her to publicly boost the name of the live house. That was close! Way too close!
But…she didn’t really have a good reason to say no. They were diehard fans and had been since they’d first stumbled upon Airplane’s music on a Vocaloid fan forum, and they’d be crushed if she turned them down without a reason. Could she let her fans down like that?
Well…it was just one little signal boost, right? And it was about Moon Dew, not the venue. And it probably would mean a whole lot to them, and at the end of the day, Shang Qinghua had a hard time saying no to her fans…
She retweeted the video, her stomach gurgling unhappily. Ugh, all this stress was murder on her gut lately. She knew the coffee wasn’t helping, either, but her stomach was now rejecting food on a fairly nondiscriminatory basis, so she thought, fuck it, at least she’d be awake. She stared at the unread emails in the company inbox, a sad whine escaping her throat like a deflated balloon.
Shang Qinghua called for Yuka, who looked annoyed like she’d been interrupted, which she probably had been.
“Got a minute?”
“No, but I’m here now. What is it?”
Shang Qinghua pressed her hands together and pointed them at Yuka. “I would like to offer you a promotion.”
Yuka immediately turned and walked out the door.
“Wait, wait, don’t go! I don’t mean a promotion like mine, I’m talking for real, I swear so please don’t go okay!”
Yuka turned back around reluctantly and crossed her arms. Shang Qinghua babbled on without prompting.
“Look, I know working here sucks! I know working for me sucks!” Shang Qinghua’s head sunk into her hands, her voice a plaintive whine. “But I’m doing my best, I really am! There are just so many emails, and booking bands is really hard and I have to start reconciling the month’s finances and it’s just too much work! Please be my general manager! I am begging you!”
“Yeah, and it’s pathetic.” Yuka regarded Shang Qinghua with her usual heartless gaze. “I want a raise.”
“I just gave you a raise!”
“Yeah, but not for a promotion. You can’t expect me to take a promotion without a raise.”
Shang Qinghua sat back in her chair, feeling cornered. “Okay, I’ll, uh, I’m gonna take a look and see what I can offer you…”
Yuka gave her a hard look for a long moment, then sighed. “Look. If paying me more is going to make it harder for us to recover, then you don’t have to give me a raise right now. But I’m expecting one as soon as we’re back in the black.”
“Yes! Yes, for sure, I will definitely give you a raise when I can afford it,” Shang Qinghua promised quickly. She hesitated. “Ah, does this apply to the raise I gave you earlier, or—”
Yuka silenced her with a withering look. Shang Qinghua cowered in her chair. Yuka pinched the bridge of her nose, the corners of her mouth tugging down.
“Why do you think working here sucks?”
Shang Qinghua looked up, blinking. Yuka’s mouth pinched.
“It does suck to work for you. But if I really hated it here, don’t you think I’d have quit already? Actually, I think the fact that I haven’t quit yet should tell you how much I like working here.”
Well, that was a relief, yes. But… “Why do you like working here?”
“Because I care about this place too.” She wasn’t embarrassed to say it, lifting her chin. “The old management was rotten. Everyone knew that. But I care about the music here. Even if the old owners never really scouted bands for their talent or their sound, only caring about making a buck…not that it worked. But this place has always had potential to help the bands who play here grow. We could foster real growth here, contribute to the Shinjuku sound. Princess Cucumber was right, you know—this last show really was different.”
There was a lot to unpack there, but the thing that Shang Qinghua’s attention snagged on was— “Wait, you read her blog?”
“That overrated hipster? I don’t pay attention to anyone who labels themselves as an ‘influencer’. I just checked her review so I’d know whether you’d be a major bummer today.”
“It was a pretty decent review, wasn’t it?” Shang Qinghua leaned back in her chair, propping her feet on her desk. “Come to think of it, Marina said something similar. About fostering growth and all that.”
Yuka narrowed her eyes slightly. “Marina?”
“Yeah, Tsukishima Marina from CiRCLE. She was the one who hooked us up with an audition from Afterglow. Honestly, if it weren’t for her we’d probably have been totally screwed.”
“Oh. That explains that. Get your feet off the desk.”
Shang Qinghua immediately obeyed, despite the fact that it was her desk, not Yuka’s. She looked up at her new general manager. “Do you know her?”
“Marina? Yeah, we were in a band together once.”
“Wait, you played in a band? For real?” She shouldn’t have been surprised, especially after this little heart-to-heart. By Yuka standards, it definitely counted as a heart-to-heart. But still! She was unlocking new levels of Yuka lore! “What instrument? Why’d you guys stop playing?”
Yuka ignored her first question and just shrugged. “It just didn’t work out after a while. We realized we weren’t having any fun playing anymore, so we decided to call it quits. It was forever ago. I heard she’d gotten a job at a live house, but I didn’t realize it was at CiRCLE. Good for her.”
She turned back to the door. “Well, if that’s it, I’m getting back to work.”
Shang Qinghua sat back and breathed a little sigh of relief. That didn’t solve all of her problems, not by a long shot, but it alleviated the pressure just a little bit. Shang Qinghua decided to put off the emails for a little bit in favor of looking over the finances. She might as well get a head start, considering how many creditors the live house owed to, and the sooner she got it over with, the sooner she could start nursing her new ulcer.
“I am so sorry I have to do this.” Shang Qinghua’s voice was thick, choked with misery. “But I don’t have any other choice. I have to find a way to make ends meet. I…I have to let you go.”
With great heaviness in her heart, Shang Qinghua carefully lowered one of her anime figures into a box for shipping. She was taking serious psychic damage here, but she really didn’t have any other choice if she wanted to pay (very) late rent!
Not for the first time, the rent for the Mile High Club was going to have to be supplemented by her own measly savings and what she scrounged together selling a couple of her figures online. An auction would’ve been better, she probably could’ve gotten more money, but…she really needed the cash as soon as possible.
There were just so many bills and deadlines, it was hard to keep track! And she was usually behind on them anyway, throwing money at the live house’s bills as soon as there was enough liquid to cover a check. Shang Qinghua had to keep spreadsheets just to keep track of how much money the Mile High Club owed to whom and why. She was getting so, so sick of spreadsheets.
But even forgoing her own rent, even selling off her precious personal belongings to throw into the bottomless well of the live house’s debt, wasn’t a sustainable solution. Yuka was right: a couple of successful shows wasn’t going to be enough. They had to start selling out gigs on the regular, or close enough to it, before Shang Qinghua’s personal funds evaporated entirely.
Shang Qinghua twisted her hair up into a bun to get it off her sweaty neck and reached over with a foot to nudge the box fan in the corner on. So much for composing tonight; the last couple of weeks had been so nauseatingly hectic, she was extra behind on the admin end of things, and she needed to sort shit out before debt collectors came knocking on the Mile High Club’s doors. Flipping between the live house’s accounting books in her lap and her bank account and menagerie of spreadsheets on her laptop, Shang Qinghua tried to find a solution. She was already cutting corners, but maybe she could take over all the custodial duties at the live house? She wasn’t sure she’d have time. And if she started having to cut her employees’ hours down…ugh, no! That was the last thing she wanted to do! What was the point of keeping the business open if her own staff couldn’t make a living wage working there? They definitely wouldn’t be restocking shochu there any time soon, though, Shang Qinghua thought glumly.
So she’d slash a few personal expenses, then. Sure, her spending had gotten pretty austere since ownership of the live house had been dropped on her—she’d passed up a Nendoroid preorder she’d been looking forward to with an actual, physical pang in her chest—and she hadn’t bought new clothes in, well, longer than that. Food? She was already down to pretty much the cheapest stuff imaginable…she could stop buying alcohol, that was no problem, but she didn’t even really spend that much on beer. Could she subsidize her diet by partially living off the snack bar at work? Augh, no, that would hurt her bottom line too! Shang Qinghua buried her face in her keyboard with a moan. She’d just had such a success! It was totally unfair that things still looked this bleak!!
But at the very least, Peerless Cucumber’s review, while not exactly raving, had nudged a little more business their way. Practice studio bookings were up, for one, and with Yuka’s help, they were actually filling out their lineup for the next couple of weeks, less of a week-to-week sprint now, more of a marathon. It’d be too much to ask for a headliner like Afterglow every weekend at this point, but Yuka had managed to talk the main act who abandoned them at the disastrous concert into coming back for another show. It wasn’t enough to save Shang Qinghua’s wallet right now, but it might just be enough in the long run. If they could keep it up.
There was, Shang Qinghua had to admit, something pretty satisfying about making the numbers fit. It would be a lot more satisfying if the numbers looked better, but now at the very least, she’d figured out which bills would be paid on time, which would be late and by how much, and…miscellaneous.
She was still working on miscellaneous.
“Shang Qinghua!”
She jumped automatically at Yuka’s short bark. One of these days, she’d—get used to it, probably! She peeled herself out of her chair and hobbled into the lobby, her left leg having fallen asleep from the knee down.
Yuka was on the phone, jerking a thumb back to the practice studios. “Studio B needs breaking down. They’re almost done in there.”
It was a Thursday, so Studio B’s residents were Proud Immortal Demon Way. Shang Qinghua could hear trickles of their sound as she approached, and her ears pricked. She decided to loiter a little just outside the door, curious. Whatever they were playing now, she didn’t recognize it.
The sound of Luo Binghe’s guitar cut out abruptly.
“Stop, everyone stop!”
Six Balls played a couple more bars on the drums, heedless of Luo Binghe’s semi-anguished tone, before finishing it off with a fill. Luo Binghe let out a noise of frustration.
“This is a mess. There’s no way this is good enough for Shen Yuan-sama.” Dejection was clear in her voice. “Six Balls, you’re going way too fast. This is supposed to be a ballad!”
“This is a ballad?” Sha Hualing scoffed. “Who writes a ballad that starts off with power chords at top volume?”
“It’s a power ballad,” Luo Binghe said defensively. Sha Hualing picked out a sarcastic riff on her guitar in response.
“We’ve only just started to write this song,” Mobei Jun said, her voice cutting firmly through the rising squabble. “You can hardly judge its quality at this point; there’s not enough to judge. The lyrics you’re writing are coming along, but you have to give the rest of the band a chance to catch up. We’ve been working on this for less than a week.”
“Yeah, and it doesn’t help that you keep changing the chord progression,” Sha Hualing said. “How’re we supposed to write anything that doesn’t sound like shit?”
“It needs to be perfect,” Luo Binghe insisted, stubbornly strumming out yet another reshuffled chord progression. “Not like our other songs. It has to be truly memorable.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with our other songs?” Six Balls said. Sha Hualing crossed her arms and glared at Luo Binghe, who only bristled in response, clutching her guitar in a white-knuckled grip.
Mobei Jun put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Binghe,” she said, “you’re overthinking it. The more you try to force it, the unhappier you’ll be with it. So don’t push so hard. We’re not on a deadline. I think you’d be better off focusing on the lyrics right now and leave the music to us. Make sure they say what you want them to say, and we’ll make sure the sound resonates.”
Luo Binghe let out an unhappy noise, but dropped it at that. Shang Qinghua knocked on the door and cracked it open to peer inside.
“Hey, guys, you’ve got a couple of minutes left. Need some help packing up?”
“Please, thank you. We must have lost track of time,” Meiyin said, with a meaningful look at both Sha Hualing and Luo Binghe. Only Sha Hualing caught it, and she made a face, mouthing it’s not my faaaauuult back at her. With a long, dramatic sigh, Luo Binghe unplugged her amp and collected her notebook. Shang Qinghua politely pretended not to notice any of this.
“Ah, no worries, I get it, you know? Sometimes you’re just really in the zone.” Shang Qinghua started breaking down the drum set with Six Balls’s help. “So…you guys writing a new song? I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”
Mobei Jun looked at her sharply, and though she was still holding her bass, something about her posture strongly gave off an “arms crossed across the chest while staring down at you” vibe. For a teenager, she really could be kind of…imperious sometimes. Shang Qinghua privately wondered if it had occurred to the band to really incorporate Mobei Jun’s ice queen vibes into their image. Honestly, their stage outfits kind of lacked cohesion. They could do with a few design pointers to really sharpen that image…
Mobei Jun was asking her a question. Shang Qinghua shook her mind back to the present. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, is anyone using the studio after us?” Mobei Jun repeated. She didn’t really sound annoyed, but she did regard Shang Qinghua with a universal coldness, so she didn’t have to.
“Oh—nah, you guys are the last in for tonight.”
“In that case, I’d like to extend the reservation by another thirty minutes.” Mobei Jun nodded curtly to her bandmates. “Solo practice. Go home if you like.”
Luo Binghe was already hurrying out of the studio as soon as her guitar was in her case, without waiting for her bandmates. Mobei Jun’s mouth thinned slightly.
“I’ll be right back. Can the rest of you handle cleanup?”
“You got it, Momo,” Six Balls said, punctuating with a tap on the hi-hat Shang Qinghua was currently trying to disassemble. Mobei Jun wasn’t really an expressively fond person, but Shang Qinghua imagined there were very few people in the world who could get away with calling her Momo. Mobei Jun only nodded and strode after Luo Binghe.
“Binghe.”
Luo Binghe almost kept going, but stopped at the front doors, crossing her arms. But she didn’t look angry so much as sulky, jaw clenched and shoulders hunched. Mobei Jun was used to her moods by now, even if the others weren’t.
“What,” Luo Binghe said flatly. Mobei Jun lifted a finger to point at her.
“I understand that you want to show your passion through our music. I understand wanting to make an impression on someone you look up to.” She spoke deliberately, unrushed, each word weighted. Her brows drew down. “But you are not the only member of this band. Or have you forgotten why we started Proud Immortal Demon Way in the first place?”
Luo Binghe’s shoulders hunched even higher, and she at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed. That was enough of an answer for Mobei Jun.
“I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” Luo Binghe muttered, and pushed open the front doors.
Mobei Jun walked back to the studio.
Sha Hualing was shouldering her guitar case while Meiyin thanked Shang Qinghua for the help. Six Balls led the way out for her bandmates with her hand in a bag of peach gummies. As she passed Mobei Jun, she took one out and slapped it into Mobei Jun’s open hand. Mobei Jun accepted it with a formal nod, put the candy in her pocket, and went back into the practice studio.
Shang Qinghua was forcefully kicking a supply closet shut, having ineffectively stacked the amps and bundles of cables, but figured this was the more expedient solution anyway. Mobei Jun picked up her bass and sat back down as the latch finally clicked.
Shang Qinghua made as if to leave, then hesitated, hovering awkwardly.
“So, you guys are writing a new song?” she tried again. Mobei Jun only grunted in response, slightly adjusting a tuner on her bass. She plucked the string to test it, and fiddled with it again. Shang Qinghua did not leave. “I’ve actually got an electric tuner, if you—”
“I don’t need it,” Mobei Jun said, not looking at her. When Shang Qinghua still did not leave, she said, “I’ll pay for the extra time on my way out.”
“Oh—yeah, that’s not a problem! I just, uh…” Shang Qinghua coughed into her hand. “It just seemed like you guys were struggling with the new song, I thought maybe I could…help…with…that?”
She’d expected Mobei Jun to say something, anything in interjection (even if just a refusal), but instead her question just stretched out awkwardly while Mobei Jun tuned her bass. Mobei Jun finally looked up, her cold gaze settling on Shang Qinghua’s face. Shang Qinghua shivered involuntarily.
Jeez, what was with this girl! Luo Binghe was a handful, but you could at least divine what she was thinking between her mood swings—Shang Qinghua really didn’t know what to expect from Mobei Jun, the bassist who always silently stood behind her vocalist, backing her up musically, socially, and intimidating posingly!
After an uncomfortably long silence, Mobei Jun said, “Why do you want to help us?”
Shang Qinghua blinked. “Why wouldn’t I? You guys are like, the Mile High Club’s resident band. You play here practically every week. Also, you know, I kind of helped you guys come together as a band, you know? I even gave you your name.”
Mobei Jun did not acknowledge those last two comments in any way. Instead she said, “Every time Luo Binghe has nominated us for the main act, you’ve turned her down. Do you agree with Shen Yuan’s assessment of our band?”
Shang Qinghua choked. Please don’t align her with Peerelss Cucumber! She’s not that much of a critic! She just wants to save her business, okay!
“Uh—I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It’s true you guys need some work, but you’re a new band. Nobody starts out on top. But…” Shang Qinghua permitted herself a little swell of pride. “I definitely don’t think we’re holding you back. I don’t think anything’s holding you back, is the thing, except maybe yourselves. You’re just still coming together, is all.”
Mobei Jun watched her as she ambled over to the wall. There were a variety of instruments hung up for easy access. Rentals for people who couldn’t or didn’t want to lug their own instruments around—or, as had been the case for Luo Binghe in the start, didn’t have an instrument of their own.
“Peerless Cucumber had one thing right: you guys are like, oozing with talent. That’s why it’s been so cool to watch you all come together as a band.” She reached for a compact little 54-key keyboard and lifted it from its stand. “But there are five of you, and you all have your own unique sound. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where they all meet at the seams. The truth is, I’m kind of looking forward to seeing what shape you guys take. You are headliner material. It’s not a matter of if, but when. You’re just not quite there yet.”
By the time Shang Qinghua had finished speaking, she’d set the keyboard on a stand, plugged it in, and turned it on. “So, if I can, I’d like to give you a little help. Just a nudge, you know? You don’t have to tell anyone.”
She noticed then that Mobei Jun’s forbidding stare hadn’t changed in the slightest, and felt a wave of terrifying teen girl aura hit her. She immediately threw her hands up and backed up a step towards the door.
“Or not! I can totally get lost right now if you want. Don’t have to help at all.”
Mobei Jun seemed to be finished tuning her bass. She adjusted her grip, her left hand sliding up the neck, and looked at Shang Qinghua.
“I didn’t know you were a musician.”
“Oh, y’know, I…dabble.” Hm, that didn’t seem like a rejection at all. Shang Qinghua’s hands hovered over the keys. “How about you play me those chords, and I’ll see what I can do?”
The band met later that night at Meiyin’s house, not for more practice, but for a little post-rehearsal unwinding on Meiyin’s suggestion. As one of the two band members who habitually thought before they spoke, it wasn’t hard for Meiyin to coax them into a night of watching variety shows, relaxing herbal tea and snacks, and fixing some interrupted pedicures.
Mobei Jun was the last to arrive, shedding her shoes at the door and heading down to the basement after politely greeting Meiyin’s mother. Six Balls had a variety of snacks spread out over the floor in front of her, produced mysteriously from the depths of her jacket. Sha Hualing was contorted into an improbable position at one end of the couch, absorbed in some phone game, while Luo Binghe lay passed out cold next to her. Meiyin was just finishing up a coat of polish on Luo Binghe’s toes with careful, delicate strokes.
“She fell asleep pretty much right away,” Meiyin said with a rueful smile, capping the bottle of polish. “I think she stayed up all night working on those lyrics.”
Six Balls dug a crumpled bag from inside her jacket and threw it at Mobei Jun, who neatly caught it out of the air. “Momo, I saved you the squid chips!”
“Thank you,” Mobei Jun said. Sha Hualing pouted at her phone.
“How come she’s the only one who ever gets squid chips?”
“Relax, girl, I got you covered. I’m your KitKat connection.”
Without looking away from her phone, Sha Hualing halfway leaned off the couch and opened her mouth. Six Balls broke off a KitKat and stuck it into her waiting maw, holding it there while Sha Hualing munched on it and tapped furiously on her phone. When that piece was gone, Six Balls repeated the process, feeding her KitKats like she was a candy-gnashing machine.
Mobei Jun unslung her bass, sat down in an empty chaise, and pulled open the bag of squid chips. It was nice to have a post-rehearsal snack. If Meiyin was the one who kept them relaxed (as much as was possible) and well-groomed, Six Balls was the one who made sure no one went hungry.
“How was solo practice?” Meiyin asked, then frowned at Mobei Jun’s hands. “You really should let me do something about those calluses. You have such lovely hands.”
She captured Mobei Jun’s hands in her own and carefully inspected them, her long fingers wrapped lightly around Mobei Jun’s. She seemed to fluster their other bandmates on occasion with her attention, but it never ruffled Mobei Jun.
“Won’t you at least consider playing with a pick?”
“Playing with a pick doesn’t produce the desired sound,” Mobei Jun said, repeating an argument they had every other week. It was like a little ritual of theirs, one of many that had emerged since they’d become Proud Immortal Demon Way. Meiyin always gave in easily, though, and let out a little sigh, releasing Mobei Jun’s hands with a wistful smile. “It was productive. I think I may have made some progress.”
“Ooh, yeah?” Six Balls looked over, eyeing Mobei Jun’s bass curiously. “What’d you—ow!”
Not having realized she had run out of KitKat to feed Sha Hualing, Six Balls had accidentally stuck her fingers into Sha Hualing’s mouth, and Sha Hualing, paying more attention to her phone, had bitten down hard. Six Balls wiped her hand on Sha Hualing’s shirt, and in turn, Sha Hualing slapped the star-shaped sunglasses off of Six Balls’s head.
“Enough, enough,” Meiyin said as Six Balls pulled Sha Hualing off of the couch with a giggle and a subsequent thud as they knocked each other to the floor. “Let’s not wake Binghe.”
“It’ll be easier to show the rest of you without interruption,” Mobei Jun said, knowing full well that Luo Binghe wouldn’t let her get more than a few measures in without commentary. Luo Binghe always had a sort of possessiveness about their music, but it was…markedly worse when she was so fixated on Shen Yuan. Mobei Jun set aside her squid chips and pulled her bass out, straightening her back. She nodded briefly at Meiyin, who was already moving for her keyboard.
Mobei Jun had Meiyin play the chords while she plucked out the melody on her bass, and then they switched parts, Meiyin’s keyboard quietly sounding out the new melody much more clearly. On the second go through, Six Balls picked up a pencil and tapped out a rhythm on her shoe, adding a counter beat on her lap. Sha Hualing, whose guitar was an unfathomable distance away on the other side of the basement, tossed her phone aside and listened with intent.
“Hey, is this what a ballad’s supposed to sound like?” Six Balls said. Meiyin’s mouth quirked into a smile.
“More than what we were playing earlier. I think we might have something we can work with.” She glanced at Mobei Jun. “This is different from what you usually write, isn’t it? It sounds a little warmer, somehow.”
“Binghe said she wanted to write a ballad.” Mobei Jun’s fingers still slowly picked out the notes, feeling them resonate a little more as everyone else added their sound. “Solo practice can be quite productive, as it turns out.”
Meiyin’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but she smiled without comment. Sha Hualing, her fingers now itching to do something other than play with her phone, jumped over Six Balls to get her guitar.
“Well, it’s not solo practice anymore, so give me that melody,” she said with an imperious little toss of her braids, snatching her guitar from its case. “Mobei Jun, you wrote that phrase for me, right? Meiyin, you can compose a keyboard part to go with it instead.”
Mobei Jun said nothing, but Meiyin, ever the mediator, just laughed softly. “Of course, of course. I think the ideal keyboard part for this song is more of a supporting role. I can think of a few arpeggios to try. Besides, you’re much better at improvisation than I am, so I’m sure you’ll be able to tease it out into something more than just one phrase.”
“Exactly,” Sha Hualing said, putting one foot up on Mobei Jun’s chaise so she could brace her guitar against her leg. Her eyes were alight with intent new determination. Meiyin, flipping through the presets on her keyboard, didn’t bother hiding a smile. “I’ll write a killer lead guitar part for this song, and Six Balls, you can polish up that beat, can’t you? And Mobei Jun’s pretty much got her part figured out already. We’ll put it all together tonight. And when we play this for Binghe at practice tomorrow, she’ll be totally floored at how well we captured her vision. And then she won’t have a single thing to complain about!”
End notes: i will wring every bit of marina lore from her limited backstory with a cheesecloth